Ya-Ya's Home Improvement

This review hurts a bit to write - because Jason is a neighbor and we started off on such a good foot. I was ready to rave about him to everyone i know. Things quickly turned sour, however. To leave such a bad review - and to dissuade others from winding up in the predicament we were in- I am going to be explicit with examples. To sum it up if you’re not a read: he did enough to shake our trust in him both in terms of as a skilled laborer as well as a person we were allowing free access to our home (originally unsupervised). He doesn’t communicate, rushes through his work and his workmanship is shoddy, at best. It’s Jason’s way or the highway with little respect for your time or your home. Payment schedule - $1,000 up front, $3,000 end of day 1, $2,000 at 100% completion. Begged with sob stories about LOSING $3,000, needing to close his cabin, having to hide money from his wife, then demanded additional draws of the remaining amount, resulting in full payment prior to completion. Told us he sticks to that to keep him honest when we tried to pay him at the beginning of day one (we didn’t think we’d be home at end of day one) - he then took the check anyway after handing it back and ran to the back IMMEDIATELY - like before actually doing anything. Then demanded we pay in cash going forward - even sending me out with both kids for non-payment schedule draws to get him cash. When i couldn’t get to the bank one day, he proceeded to remind us in person, call me at work, text when I’d be home and was frantic over getting this money he WASN”T even supposed to be getting that day but massively pressured us into giving him on this new, unarticulated schedule. Messy - he doesn’t have courtesy in your home. While I understand construction is a messy process (and by NO means is our house spotless) - he left dust, tile fragments, materials in our kitchen sink from rinsing etc. Gouged our hallway floor with his tools - but never addressed it with us. There was dust from sanding left everywhere. TERRIBLE communicator. We understand that life happens. Jason got sick mid project, and he was where he needed to be - home. However, the few days leading up to him being sick he came in and did basically nothing. Made an error in our shower tile then pushed back about fixing it (but ultimately did). Said in the beginning he was coming at 730am daily and working until about 230-3. We had our household up and ready for people to be over, which is no small feat with a 5 month old and a 2.5 year old for him to consistently do whatever the **** he wanted. We felt like we couldn’t trust him and were always trying to figure out where he was and what he was doing. He worked 3-4 hour days, and as you’ll see below, the rushing really was noticeable. Says he’s working late, but then his wife is calling telling him whats the point of having a small business if he’s not going to set his own hours. Texted him on a sunday asking if he’d be here, said yes. Next day all the sudden had a mechanic appointment, dr appointment and couldn’t come? Like he didn’t know about those on a sunday afternoon but at 645am monday it changed? Communicated a finishing timeline for us including working on a saturday. Next day he forgot he had to set up and attend his daughter’s party - no big deal but why not have a firm grasp of your schedule. Obviously business is not his strong suit. He treated us like his servants - at his beck and call for supplies, even though at the beginning we had asked what we needed and how much, and he indicated additional supplies he’s grab and we’d pay him back with receipts. By the way, if you do hire him, make sure the receipts he’s handing you are actually yours, he tried to give my husband a receipt for $90 that was not ours. We missed a lot of work because of this and our inability to trust him in our home to do a decent job without supervision. Don’t be afraid to outsource to outside trades people. HIS electrician was going to be $400 and two weeks out - we had an amazing guy come do the same task for $125 the next day. His plumber freelances for him and was totally rude - hollering in our house hold and causing a massive disruption in our household. Luckily his job was done well and in one night. Poor workmanship - he told us our shower was safe for our daughter to use, and that all he had left to do was paint (which was delayed for a preference of ours with respect to electricians, so acceptable) The center track was not set properly and the door almost came off on my toddler. When I texted Jason this – he had an opportunity for some customer service – a sincere apology and an indication that he’d get it taken care of would’ve gone a long way. Instead, I get a text “OMG see I said I didn’t like that design … sorry that happened.” Quite honestly, I don’t care if you LIKE the design. I LIKE THE DESIGN. You led me to believe you were competent and capable to do the installation, and told me directly that the tub was safe for me to bathe my toddler (pending sending my husband on a goosechase for a part – and if he didn’t return in time you were leaving). The faucets weren’t attached to the vanity in a secure manner. There was grout right by the tub completely missing down to the subfloor. The caulk in the tub didn’t cover to the point where there was black streaks coming through looking like mold in a brand new tub. Type to enter text While the amount monetarily is nominal - he made himself at home, taking food from our fridge, freezer and pantry without asking (we would have given him free reign) but instead we’re finding goldfish wrappers in the garage, veggie straw wrappers in the linen cabinet, we had several things (like an entire pack of buns, pound of turkey lunch meat) go missing. Nothing worse than going to make turkey burgers for dinner to find you have NO BUNS. Also helped himself to ice cream bars, pretzels (leaving crumbs in our brand new cabinets!) We are now about a month and a half from completion and have had to fix a leaky running shower, completely reinstall the glass shower tub door, and are dealing with a toilet leaking all over our floor. We decided not to pursue having Jason fix these things because of the above experiences, and therefore acknowledge that we didn’t give him a further chance to rectify our ongoing issues.

One month since completing this project I have a loose tile in my bathroom. I reached out twice via email and once via text and asked Jason to return to fix. He indicated via text I likely walked on it too quickly and there would be a service fee associated with his return. I indicated I had waited the allotted time and felt he should fix the tile because there was something wrong. Jason's reply was, "Sorry That you feel that way but I also told you that I don't suggest you stop in on that tile because you don't do what I do every day so next time when you want to speak to somebody you some respect and talk to them don't tell me there's something wrong with my work." It was an incredibly disappointing outcome.

He did a real good job and cleaned up after his work. He did everything he said he was going to do.